The Celtic Classic gets underway at the iconic and famous Celtic Manor on Thursday and it does so with all 132 players taking to the course for the first time in a competitive environment this week, as they look to position themselves in a good position on the early leaderboard.
As with the other events on the UK Swing, due to Covid regulations the entire field tee off on the first hole which gives a real official feel to the event and with plenty of history on this golf course we should be in for a decent opening day of action.
First Round Leader
As ever when we do round previews for these tournaments the first market we target in the opening 18 holes is the first round leader market. When a field go out throughout the day like this one does the weather can really reduce the field. Looking at the forecast there are storms predicted around lunchtime so while the players won’t be out with lightning around, the rain might soften the course up nicely for the later starters.
With that in mind I’ll take a chance on Ashley Chesters continuing his good starts to the UK Swing events. He’s out in the third last group on Thursday so he’ll miss all the storms but can reap the benefits of them. This course is built for good ball striking and straight hitting and he carries that in droves. So far in the UK Swing he has opened with rounds of 67, 66 and 68 which were good for round one positions of T9, T5 and T51. I don’t expect scoring to be as low this week as it was last so I’ll ignore that. The other two have him in good shape and so at 75/1 I’ll pay to see where he ends up on the leaderboard after play on Thursday.
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Thursday 3 Balls
The 132 players will go out in 44 groups of three on Thursday and although this isn’t a major championship, a number of the groups have been priced up and it would be rude of us not to have a look for any bets on show! The main groups which will form most of the TV coverage sees Brandon Stone and two UK Swing winners Renato Paratore and Andy Sullivan out at 08.39 BST with Thomas Pieters, Jason Scrivener and Adri Arnaus going out 11 minutes later. Moving into the afternoon and the marquee group is the one featuring Sami Valimaki, Joost Luiten and Ross Fisher who are due to go off at 12.51. 11 minutes before then the Pablo Larrazabal, Sam Horsfield and Adrian Otaegui group will be popular with the cameras. We’ve looked through all the groups and come up with one bet.
Zander Lombard/Nicolas Colsaerts/Wilco Nienaber
Match tees off at 08.17 BST
The group which catches my eye comes in the morning session when Nicolas Colsaerts goes out with the South African pair of Zander Lombard and a man few would have heard of prior to last week in Wilco Nienaber, the new South African sensation who looked in pretty good touch at Hanbury Manor.
Colsaerts is the favourite for this group and I think he has plenty going for him here. He played well last week where he opened with a 65 and in his last two starts on this course going back to the days when it hosted the Welsh Open, he had finishes of T12 and T4, the latter of which saw him begin the tournament with a round of 66. When you add in that Open de France form could be significant it helps that the Belgian is the current holder of that title. Lombard has missed all three cuts on the UK Swing and hasn’t carded a round under par yet while it remains to be seen whether last week was a one-off or whether Nienaber can produce the goods on a much tougher track. He might be able to but we know Colsaerts can perform here so I’ll take him to win this three ball.
Tips
Back A.Chesters First Round Leader (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 76.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-6)
WON – Back N.Colsaerts to beat Z.Lombard & W.Nienaber for a 3/10 stake at 2.40 with Betfair
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